Epic Rumour Mill Churns

[TheIronKnuckle]

You don't need to use irc to play at FragBU, it just another way for us to chat or get people playing at the same time.

But like I said in my last post, we rarely have enough players to actually get in a decent game so we mainly spend our time messing around and finding lots of bugs/exploits in the game. Ping isn't an issue when you're just having fun.

well.... You probably know i'm a bot-lover , but i am always open to hanging out on a server regularly. That means i have no problem waiting around on FragBU even if no one else is on the server as long as there are bots to play with while i wait
I'm assuming bots fill up the space when no one is on, so i've got no real problems hanging out there. All i need to do is install all these 1337 custom packs.

 

[Al]

I see the only game you can take a part in adequetely is the one called 'Being a condesending c*nt'.

:tup:

 

[WarTourist]

I see the only game you can take a part in adequetely is the one called 'Being a condesending c*nt'.

:tup:

Sorry you react so poorly to being challenged. Out of respect for Hal and Brizz, I'll let it die here.

 

[Al]

Sorry you react so poorly to being challenged. Out of respect for Hal and Brizz, I'll let it die here.

Topic locked.

 

[[SAS]Solid Snake]

Same as it ever was. I'm of the opinion UT3 didn't make this any harder for the folks who would have actually done something with the tech in the previous generations. If you've got the goods to make a mod, you're going to make one.

I agree, what I'm saying is, it's difficult for the newer people to start modding.

 

[UndeadRoadkill]

Lol guys, it's "fellate" and "fellatio."

 

[WarTourist]

Lol guys, it's "fellate" and "fellatio."

D'oh! I double checked, I swear. Damn Wikipedia!

 

[TheIronKnuckle]

wartourist is awesome

 

[WarTourist]

wartourist is awesome

It's fun to be playing on a more level field .

 

[Hadmar]

As consumers you have a SINGLE lever for making your will manifest: The purchase of the game. If you buy the game, and then raise hell on the forums, the only thing the developers hear from you is "Good job!".

I don't usually reply to threads I haven't read but I stumbled over this by accident and I have to ask:

You say the good old way of buying a game, playing it for some time to build an opinion about it and then, if you don't like, telling the developers "your game sucks" doesn't work. That obviously means one has to build an informed opinion before one buys a game to give the right message. That's sort of hard to do. Do you suggest we warez all games prior to buying them so that we can have an informed opinion about if we want to tell the developers "Good Job!" or not?

 

[WarTourist]

I don't usually reply to threads I haven't read but I stumbled over this by accident and I have to ask:

You say the good old way of buying a game, playing it for some time to build an opinion about it and then, if you don't like, telling the developers "your game sucks" doesn't work. That obviously means one has to build an informed opinion before one buys a game to give the right message. That's sort of hard to do. Do you suggest we warez all games prior to buying them so that we can have an informed opinion about if we want to tell the developers "Good Job!" or not?

Nope, read the reviews, talk to the folks who did jump, and waiting for a price drop all work to reduce the "risk". Forum posts are about as useful to trigger change as convincing your cat the UI sucks.

You don't KNOW you're going to like a movie before you take the family to it, you take on a little risk. If you want to reduce the risk, read reviews and talk to friends. If you want to reduce it more, wait until the DVD comes out and rent it. Reduce it even more and wait for it to air on TV.

These aren't video game issues, these are consumer issues regardless of the media. I'll admit the price tag is higher than a movie, but certainly not by much when you factor in food, date, etc.

It just seems that the people most unhappy (hated it AND stayed around to raise hell) have some relationship to the game that extends well beyond the normal retail transaction. That's where fans get into trouble, because that "relationship" is almost certainly going only one way.

 

[Agent_5]

Forum posts are about as useful to trigger change as convincing your cat the UI sucks.

That would depend on the forum post and the cat.

 

[Hadmar]

Nope, read the reviews, talk to the folks who did jump, and waiting for a price drop all work to reduce the "risk". Forum posts are about as useful to trigger change as convincing your cat the UI sucks.

If buying a game or not buying it is my only way to communicate with developers, then I need a good idea of what I want to say to them. Neither reviews nor talking to people who played the game suffices for that. If I buy it for a lower price then I guess that would mean something along the lines of "Okay Job!" which still, if it's my only way of communication, doesn't suffice. Because I might have wanted to say "Awesome Job!" or "Your game made me want to kill myself!" or anything in between.


Maybe it's time to lower the force fields that apparently shield the developers so completely from the people who use their products a little. A boolean of Good Job! / Silence that isn't even based on the real opinion but the expectations people had when they entered the shop doesn't at all seem like a good strategy to me if one would want to deliver quality.

 

[WarTourist]

If buying a game or not buying it is my only way to communicate with developers

See that's the problem. Your goal (correct me if I'm wrong) is to communicate with the developers, not play a fun game. Believe it or not, unless the developer solicits feedback on a specific issue, they're really not all that interested in what you have to say.

It reminds me of all the unsolicited game ideas that would show up at various studios I've worked at. Each and every one was thrown in the trash without even a sentence being read. Beyond the obvious legal complications, fundementally guys in game development have a MILLION ideas they want to try out. New games, new features, tweaks, there's no shortage of things dudes who make games want to make.

All the realities of the business that TRULY dictate how a product goes are the gates, not lack of creativity, running out of ideas or not knowing what went wrong.

 

[Mozi]

Forum posts are about as useful to trigger change as convincing your cat the UI sucks.

Quick PS job....

 

[cooloola]

I agree, what I'm saying is, it's difficult for the newer people to start modding.

I don't know how it is for other aspects but for mapping it's quite easy, i finished my first UT3 map within my first week of mapping and it wasn't one of those test maps, it was DM-Cogworks. And i made the jump directly from UT99, i think there can't be any bigger jump a mapper can make when it comes to switching engines.
@WarTourist
To me at least it seemed the game was 'dumbed' down for the consoles because of the maps, UT2k4 had some extremely good maps in terms of gameplay and they were all so diverse. Whereas UT3's maps all looked the same and felt more like arenas and there were just too many remakes in there, if a game doesn't have a good diverse selection of maps upon release the multiplayer will die quick. That's my only gripe with UT3.
::EDIT::
That and the somewhat stupid singleplayer, that sort of ****ed up the whole tournament thing. I can't understand how the idea of such a singleplayer campaign came up? There is absolutely no denying that it was an attempt to please the console crowd, which is not wrong but if you're gonna make a single player campaign you should do a proper one or not at all. You could have at least stuck with a singleplayer campaign like the one form UT2k4 and if you feel that that isn't enough you could perhaps try to add a bit of story along the lines of faction rivalries or something. The whole war thing is extremely out of place and trying to justify it with nodes, flags and respawners just felt dumb. The only way that could have worked was with the assault gametype.

 

[TheIronKnuckle]

Really? I didn't think there were enough remakes in ut3 I suppose there was a lack of maps in general.

 

[WarTourist]

Whereas UT3's maps all looked the same and felt more like arenas and there were just too many remakes in there, if a game doesn't have a good diverse selection of maps upon release the multiplayer will die quick. That's my only gripe with UT3.

Really? I didn't think there were enough remakes in ut3 I suppose there was a lack of maps in general.

This point always confuses me. We shipped with around 40 unique maps (more if you include Necris versions). What game in the current generation ships with that many? It seems inline with the number of maps Ut2004 shipped with (sans ut2003 content) and gameplay team felt the map quality on average was much higher than UT2003/4. Add the fact the assets and maps took on average 4 times longer to create than UE2, I think the maps were a homerun given our resources.

I never understood how anyone could plausibly claim UT3 skimped on content.

There is absolutely no denying that it was an attempt to please the console crowd

Consider it denied . From the teams perspective it was the best single player component of any UT. Not Bioshock by any stretch, but the goal was to take a break from the tournament and compared to previous UT single player we felt it served its purpose. It could be better as things always can be, but if there was only a PC version of UT3 the campaign would be virtually indentical.

 

[Hadmar]

See that's the problem. Your goal (correct me if I'm wrong) is to communicate with the developers, not play a fun game.

That's not mutually exclusive. Unless the game sucks, of course. See, people want to play fun games. If they are done playing a fun game they want to play another fun game. To make sure future games are as fun as what they just played they want to tell the ones who make the game things like "A+ would buy again because...". If the game was mediocre they might want to say "That was okay but you could do better here and here and here". If the game is a sequel and not as fun as the prequel they might want to say "Guys, you totally took the wrong direction here and here and here".

It's communication that is supposed to make sure that fun games continue to exist and not the type of communication that goes "Hey, the game is okay but your WW3 FPS would be a lot better if you would turn it into a turn based MMORPG with witches that ride on miniature dragons and hunt giant snails".

 

[WarTourist]

To make sure future games are as fun as what they just played they want to tell the ones who make the game things like "A+ would buy again because...".

I understand. And I'm saying most of the game buying community doesn't think like that (the customer/fan schism). The customer doesn't even know who made the game, let alone take upon themselves to try and help them make a better one.

Further, the developer already has a laundry list of things they want to do, think they screwed up on, want to improve and whatever contribution you make goes to the bottom of that list, assuming it's not already on it and priortized.

I feel like we're going in circles so perhaps we should just agree to disagree. I respect your opinion and certainly others share it. Nevertheless in my experience forum posts, unless in a thread from a developer titled "Tell Us What You Hate About Feature X", has zero impact on the game being discussed.

If you want to influence games, join the game business. It's never been easier!